Ulrich Seidl's "Import/Export" at Cannes

At Cannes, Tobias Kniebe went to see "Import/export", the new film by Austrian director, Ulrich Seidl. The film tells the story of Olga, a Ukrainian nurse who hopes for a better life in Austria, and the parallel story of Paul, an unemployed Austrian who seeks his fortune in Ukraine. "This film is less about physical borders or drawing a geographical line between rich and poor and more about the invisible barriers that can no longer be transcended, even in an ever-expanding Europe. In Seidl films it's not new that the viewer is spared nothing. He films inside Ukraine's sex shops as impassively as he shows us the nappies worn by patients in a viennese nursing home where Olga eventually finds a job as a cleaner. But the humour in these images is breathtaking, as well as the humanity that suddenly breaks through in the most unexpected moments. Seidl has taken his place among the great masters of his metier. He's a filmmaker who looks where no one else cares to and looks long enough until he finds a strange kind of beauty and truth."

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